'One fantastic night:' Easley's 1967 title team reunites

Keith Godfrey, a member of Easley's 1967 state championship football team, recalls highlights on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of that memorable season.
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Keith Godfrey, a member of Easley High School's 1967 Class AA state championship football team, looks through a scrapbook with stories and photos from the season(Photo: BOB CASTELLO/Staff)

For 13 weeks, no one was better. For 50 years, they've savored their achievement.

On Friday night, the members of Easley High School's 1967 Class AA state championship football team will reunite and rekindle the memories in celebration of its 50th anniversary.

"It'll probably be the last time we see one another," said Keith Godfrey, "but it's going to be one fantastic night."

Godfrey, a senior guard and linebacker on that memorable team, has been working since October to gather the players, coaches, managers and cheerleaders involved with the 1967 team, which will be honored at halftime of the Green Wave's home game against Daniel.

Godfrey said 36 players, all four coaches, a manager and six of the eight cheerleaders plan to be at the reunion. Along with their family members and those from the families of the manager and eight players who have died, a group of more than 140 will represent the championship team.

"The majority of us haven't seen each other in 50 years," Godfrey said.

He went to great lengths to make sure they could.

Godfrey has a brother who's a policeman in Lyman, a nephew who's a policeman in Spartanburg County and another nephew who's a highway patrolman in Cherokee County.

"They helped me find some of them," he said. "But the ones I could not find, I called the FBI."

Godfrey has a friend who works with the FBI, and she helped him locate three of the players. One of them is Roger Brown, who went into the Army after graduation, was eventually stationed in the Phillipines and wound up staying. He's been there for 34 years.

Godfrey hadn't seen Brown for 50 years, until Godfrey picked Brown up at the airport Thursday.

Godfrey has been doing a lot of catching up over the last several months while locating everyone and telling them about the reunion.

"I've spoken with every one of them — coaches, players, managers, cheerleaders," he said. "Now I'm going to get to see them, and it's a thrill. It's like a kid with a new toy."

The head coach in 1967 was new. Larry Bagwell, a 1955 Easley graduate, had been an assistant under Bill Carr for four years, and he took over when Carr left to become the coach at Spartanburg.

The coaches of the 1967 Easley football team were, from left, Billy Houston, Oscar Thorsland, head coach Larry Bagwell and Carthel Crout.(Photo: PROVIDED)

Bagwell's staff, like others at the time, was small and versatile. His assistants were Oscar Thorsland, Billy Houston and Carthel Crout. Bagwell also was the basketball coach, and Bagwell and Thorsland coached track. Crout coached baseball. Houston coached the middle school teams.

"Now you go to one of the games," Bagwell said, "and they've got so many coaches on the sidelines, it's hard to see where the players are."

Low expectations

The team had gone 7-3 the year before, but only two players returned from the offense and only three from the defense.

"The people in the town were expecting us to go maybe 5-5, maybe win half our games," Godfrey said. "New head coach, new theory, new philosophy, new game plan, and everybody wasn't sure -- except the 44 guys that were on our team. In 1965 this team went undefeated on the JV, so we had been together for three years before we became seniors."

Bagwell, the Green Wave's coach through 1992 and now the mayor in Easley, gathered the boys for camp -- a first -- at Gettys Middle School.

"We practiced three or maybe four times a day and sort of got them to come together, and I think the rewards speak for themselves," he said.

"It was worse than boot camp," said Godfrey. "But we became a team that week."

Easley played Dorman in its opener, and the Green Wave's Mike Owen returned the opening kickoff 82 yards for a touchdown.

"That set the tone for our season," Godfrey said.

Easley won 13-7.

The next week, Easley knocked off defending state champion Daniel 20-19, the first of five Top-10 opponents beaten by the Green Wave, who began the season unranked.

"In Easley back in those days, the cotton mills were going on, and I honestly believe they closed down second shift, because our stands were packed every week," Godfrey said. "They would be six, seven, eight deep in the end zone, and the banks would be full. It was such a thrill to come out of that locker room, dressed in Green and White, run down that hill, go through the goalposts and see all those people. And it didn't matter whether we were home or away, they followed us."

Easley posted shutouts against Chapman, Carolina, Greer and Byrnes, followed by a hard-fought, 13-7 win over rival Pickens.

After getting past Anderson 21-7, the Green Wave beat Palmetto 12-0 to all but sew up the Western AA Conference title and a playoff berth. They crushed Hillcrest and rallied from a 6-0 halftime deficit to defeat Belton-Honea Path 21-12 to complete an 11-0 regular season.

That set up a showdown against Woodruff for the Upper State championship.

"(Coach) Willie Varner's team averaged 260 pounds on the offensive line," Godfrey said. "Our offensive line did good to average 160 pounds.

"The news media and the coaches throughout the state, their comment was that Woodruff would eventually wear down the smaller Green Wave team and win by two touchdowns or more. That kind of made us mad."

Easley rolled to a 31-13 victory.

The Green Wave scored on the first play from scrimmage, a triple reverse, with Rick Gilstrap throwing a 58-yard touchdown pass to Owen.

"Then our fullback, Stanley Brooks, ran one for 82 yards on our second series, and that kind of broke their back," said Godfrey.

A gifted group

Gilstrap, the team's senior quarterback, was an exceptional athlete who went on to play at Clemson and coach at Wofford, Furman and The Citadel, among others.

Gilstrap is one of eight members of the 1967 team in the Easley High School Athletic Hall of Fame, along with Brooks, Owen, Godfrey, David Loggins, Dale Wood and coaches Bagwell and Houston.

The senior members of the 1967 Easley team led the way during a season in which the Green Wave outscored their opponents 330-84 and posted six shutouts.(Photo: PROVIDED)

"We had it, but we didn't know it till it was all over with," said Godfrey. "When you're 16, 17, 18 years old, you really don't know what you have. Then it sinks in about 10 years later what you actually did."

In Owen, Brooks and Ronnie Simmons, Easley had three of the fastest backs in the state. Owen ran the 100-yard dash in 9.8 seconds, Brooks in 10.0 and Simmons in 10.1 when they finished second, third and fourth, respectively, in the Class AA state track meet.

Their speed was on display again in the state final, when Easley played St. Andrews at The Citadel's Johnson Hagood Stadium.

St. Andrews scored first but missed the point-after kick. Gilstrap capped a quick drive full of big plays with a 9-yard touchdown run, and Greg Mull made good on his kick to put Easley up 7-6.

Owen then broke free for a 64-yard touchdown. The Green Wave led 14-6, despite having the ball for just four minutes in the first half.

Easley put together its only long drive of the game in the third quarter, and Gilstrap scored on a 1-yard run. Mull's kick proved to be the game-winning point.

"The game hasn't changed that much, in the fact that you can lose it on your kicking game," Bagwell said.

With 1:18 remaining, Easley, clinging to a 21-20 lead, had a third-and-six, and Simmons picked up the first down. The Green Wave ran out the clock and celebrated.

"We just kept winning," Bagwell said. "It was just a situation where, as that old saying goes, play them one at a time and see how you end up. All of a sudden, we were bringing the trophy back.

"My daddy told me, 'If you win them all, I'll buy you the biggest hi-fi in the city of Easley,' and lo and behold, he was true to his word. He went and bought me a big stereo. And I kept that thing for years and years and years. It was about the size of a refrigerator."

"We had so many fans that came from Easley to Charleston," said Godfrey. "From the time we played Daniel the second game of the season, our stadium was packed every week. When we went to Charleston, we were on the visitors' side at The Citadel, and we covered three-fourths of that stadium. And people just went totally berserk.

"But it didn't dawn on us as players what we had achieved until we were on that bus ride back home. The only thing we knew was we went 13-0. That's what we set out to do, and that's what we did."